SEQUIM — In an area of limited water resources, city officials are looking at storm- and surface water as a resource growing in importance and use.
“The city has come to recognize that stormwater should be treated as an important resource rather than a liability,” according to the newly adopted Storm and Surface Water Master Plan.
Bringing the planning process to a close and kick-starting implementation of strategic water management, the Sequim City Council unanimously approved the city’s first Storm and Surface Water Master Plan on Monday.
Councilman John Miller was absent.
Reduce pollution
The plan identifies ways to control runoff and reduce pollution threatening water quality, including Bell, Johnson and Gierin creeks, which are the main drainage basins encompassed by the city.
They are listed as impaired waterbodies by the state Department of Ecology.
The plan also lays out action to protect habitat, prepare for population growth and climate change, and enhance relationships with water management partners and neighboring entities.
“It gets us in front of the increase in runoff with population growth and more intensive storm events,” Ann Soule, city stormwater stewardship resource manager, has said.
Now that the plan has been adopted, city staff initially will enact the storm- and surface water management goals listed in Tier A, the first of three tiers outlined by the plan, and bring the city up to today’s stormwater requirements.
To do so, staff will rely on money from already secured grants and from the sewer and water utility funds.
No additional tax
“There will be no additional tax, no additional stormwater utility and no additional rate increase to fund the portions of the plan that we intend to work on in the next three years, and those are the portions that are currently mandated by law, so we feel that it’s a very important thing to do,” said David Garlington, city public works director.
Including the cost of capital improvement projects, such as the installation of an outfall pipe, a stormwater storage facility and the redirection of stormwater to bio-retention cells, funding for Tier A is estimated at $719,500.
To supplement the stormwater budget and ensure progress of capital improvement projects, the staff intends to seek grants, Garlington said.
Already an Ecology grant is slated to begin an inspection program and the construction of two capital improvement projects in early 2017.
“I was impressed with the effort staff made getting money to look into things, in addition to coming up with a plan that we don’t have to pay anymore to get all these things done,” Councilman Bob Lake said.
“This was a very, very efficient use of our public money.”
Avoid permit
City officials hope that taking steps toward water management now will lessen the likelihood of Ecology requiring a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Phase II Municipal Stormwater Permit.
Neighboring Port Angeles was issued an NPDES Phase II permit in 2007. The permit required more stringent regulations than were in effect earlier.
“Sequim currently doesn’t have a [Department of Ecology] permit for stormwater discharge and we don’t want to have a permit,” Garlington said.
“A permit is a very onerous undertaking.”
Adoption and action of the Storm and Surface Water Master Plan is reflective of city officials’ interest in stormwater management, Garlington said.
“As long as we can continue to show them [Ecology] we’re making progress on stormwater issues, I think we stand a very good chance of avoiding becoming a permitted city and having to follow the regulations . . . that’s something we’re trying mildly to avoid,” he said.
Deputy Mayor Ted Miller noted his skepticism of the need for a stormwater plan but said “with some reluctance, I support the plan.”
“Restricting to the Tier A requirements as the plan does is probably the best way to go,” he said.
“I am glad Tier B and Tier C aren’t being funded at this time, and I hope that they won’t be for [some] time.”
The Storm and Surface Water Master Plan was developed throughout the past two years by Herrera Environmental Consultants Inc. in collaboration with city staff.
For more information about the plan, call 360-582-5710 or email waterinfo@sequimwa.gov.
The plan can be viewed at www.sequimwa.gov/index.aspx?nid=682.
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Alana Linderoth is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach her at alinderoth@sequimgazette.com.
